Zelda Therapeutics Ltd‘s (ASX:ZLD) shares have bounded 13% higher to $0.13 in early trade following the company being approved for Australia’s first medicinal cannabis trial for insomnia.

The clinical trial approval was granted from the Therapeutics Goods Administration and the Human Research Ethics Committee.

The trial will be undertaken by the prestigious University of Western Australia (UWA) Centre for Sleep Science (CSS), which has state of the art research facilities and is directed by Professor Peter Eastwood, National Health and Medical Research Council Senior Research Fellow.

Zelda’s clinical trial will target a sample population of people with characteristic symptoms of chronic insomnia, which include difficulty falling and staying asleep on a long-term basis.

A randomised, placebo controlled, cross over study design will be used, where patients are selected at random to be treated with Zelda’s medicinal cannabis formulation or a placebo formulation.